Truly heartbreaking to witness another terrible tragedy like this. Just a horrible story to wake up in the morning to find waiting for you on your TV. My deepest sympathies go out to all of the friends and families of the seven heroic astronauts who lost their lives.

I hope that NASA is able to pinpoint the cause, and rebound with their space program soon...

My thoughts and prayers are with the Columbia astronauts, families and people who work for NASA. I never thought we would see two Space Shuttles gone. I was home sick the day the Challanger blew up (probably the sickest I have ever been to boot) and so I had tons of feverish nightmares that week. I along with a lot of other kids in the 80's dreamed of being an astronaut, SW was a big part of that dream.

In one of Carl Sagan's books he predicted doom for the shuttle program if another one was destroyed. Space exploration funding is seen as unneccesary (witness the ISS being 20+ years behind schedule due to budget cuts in its program). Risking astronaut lives is deemed to risky and many of the missions could be performed by unmanned craft (see many of the recent Mars successes and failures) for far cheaper costs. Plus public reaction to this disaster may mean even less risk wanted to be taken in tax money.

BTW AE, have you ever been to the rocket museum in Huntsville? I alwys have wanted to go (I fly in to Huntsville when I go to Alabama) but never have gotten the chance

BTW AE, have you ever been to the rocket museum in Huntsville? I alwys have wanted to go (I fly in to Huntsville when I go to Alabama) but never have gotten the chance

I've been there a number of times, and each time there's something different about it. Coolest thing there is the components of a shuttle... that is, the backyard has fuel tanks and all that stuff laid out and you can walk around them and such. On the inside there's a lot of cool stuff, including a few models of Star Wars vehicles!

Our sun spurts out two large plumes of so-called prominences in an image captured by the SOHO satellite. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively cool, dense plasma swirling around the sun's corona. These prominences extend about 20 Earths out from the sun. SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, is a satellite launched in 1995 to give scientists an uninterrupted view of the sun. It's operated by the European Space Agency and NASA.(03/25/03)

Awesome. I've got a pretty nice telescope, and I was thinking about getting a sun-filter so I can look at it... but at moment just havent had the interest to.I've got a cool picture of the moon I took from my telescope, I'll post it later today if anyone's interested in seeing the moon (not a big deal, but still sorta cool).

Have you guys seen one of the space shows at an IMAX? Man, that was first thing I saw at an IMAX, and it was so awesome. I just couldnt help but wish IMAX had a "Battle Over Endor" show, where you basically soar around space in the midst of the huge battle... Man, that'd be awesome, okay, im done.